The invention relates to a railroad vehicle with at least two collision posts disposed in an end region of the railroad vehicle and extending perpendicularly to a floor of the railroad vehicle, wherein a crumple zone is disposed in a front end region of the floor and each of the collision posts is connected at its upper end to a roof region of the railroad vehicle, each of the collision posts being provided with a buckling knuckle in its upper end region.
The front end region of a railroad vehicle must bear strong forces without being permanently deformed and to this end it is generally constructed with appropriate rigidity. In the event of a collision, however, a crumple zone in the end region of the railroad car must be capable of undergoing a defined degree of deformation. An example of a railroad vehicle having an end crumple zone is disclosed in DE 199 56 856 A1. The rigidity of the front part, however, must not hinder the deformation of the crumple zone in the event of a collision. At this juncture it should be noted that the region of a railroad vehicle that is deformed and thus absorbs energy is generally designated as a crumple zone. In a collision of two railroad vehicles, the crumple zone must absorb a large part of the released energy through plastic deformation, but in order to function correctly, the crumple zone must not tilt up during the deformation process. The floor region in the vehicle end zone must therefore remain level despite the deformation of the crumple zone.
Furthermore, to prevent the crumple zone of a railroad vehicle from tilting upwardly during deformation thereof, disclosures in EP-A 1,295,772 and the article by Wolter. W. “Kollisionssi-chere Schienenfahrzeuge—Empfehlungen fur Hersteller und Betreiber (Crashworthy Rail Vehicle—Recommendations for Manufacturers and Operators)” Glasers Annalen, Georg Siemens Verlag, Berlin, DE, Vol. 128, June 2004 (2004-06), pages 196 to 206, XP001196844 ISSN-1618-8330, reveal that each collision post has a buckling region in its upper end region.
A buckling region is to be understood here as being a region that has a weaker construction than the rest of the collision post, such that the collision post buckles in the region of the buckling site in the event of a major stress, such as when there is a collision thereof with another railroad vehicle. By means of this solution, the collision post is buckled in the buckling region in the event of a deformation of the crumple zone, in which case, a knuckle is formed in the buckling region, and the floor region or the crumple zone is guided by the collision posts. An upward tilt of the crumple zone or the front end floor region is prevented by the guidance provided by the collision posts. Thus the structure of the front part, namely the collision posts, stabilizes the deformation of the crumple zone in the event of a collision.